Thanks to a newly streamlined and automated hiring system, Allied Alloys can focus more time on building a highly engaged and productive workforce.
The Challenge
Fenny Chawala, HR manager at Allied Alloys, is truly the "HR army of one," handling everything from recruiting and hiring to payroll, benefits, and employee engagement programs for 90+ employees across two locations. She was stuck in a cycle of inefficient hiring processes, paying too much to sponsor ads on Indeed, and never feeling like she had enough time to make sure her employees were happy and engaged.
And since only 50% of the workforce has access to company email, she had no way to reach every employee without playing the supervisor game of telephone or literally chasing them down on the company golf cart.
“We knew the information was not reaching every employee. When you depend on a game of telephone, you can be certain that not all the information (and right information) is getting through,” says Fenny.
The Solution
With Team Engine, Fenny was able streamline the entire recruiting process with hiring automation and smart screening, increasing qualified applicants by 133% while reducing the time she spent reviewing applications and scheduling interviews by 60%. Rather than waiting up to six months to get a good interview in the door, Fenny was able to set up phone screen interviews within 5 minutes of making first contact via text message. She says, “Now we have a much more streamlined process for recruiting and hiring rather than a “we’ll just deal with it when it happens” workflow."
Thanks to Team Engine's employee messaging platform, Fenny has seen enormous increases in morale and engagement which she credits to the simplicity and ease of use of texting. People that wouldn’t normally come to HR directly or would just go without getting questions answered can now directly get in touch with Fenny and the central office via text without the downsides of her having to be available on her cell phone during all hours of the day. “I love that our employees know they can just shoot me a quick text.”
Team Engine hasn’t taken away any of my responsibilities, but rather taken the tedious work off my plate so I can focus on big-picture things like company morale and employee engagement.
Fenny Chawala
Human Resources Manager, Allied Alloys
Hire Better and Faster than Ever
Before Team Engine, Allied Alloys was paying nearly $400 a month to sponsor job ads on Indeed, but they just didn't get the quantity or quality they were looking for. And even after sorting through the applications, Fenny would spend hours reaching out only to find the person was no longer interested.
Now with Team Engine, Fenny sets the parameters and only reviews the fraction of the applications that meet her standard. In a recent posting for a forklift operator, they received over 200 applications in just three days, but thanks to Team Engine’s smart ranking and scoring system, Fenny could easily review the top-ranked applicants and reach out to them in minutes rather than hours.
“It could take months to fill a position before Team Engine. We often had to resort to staffing agencies or temporary workers, which is not very ideal. We haven’t had to reach out to a staffing agency once since bringing on Team Engine.”
Connect and Engage with Every Employee
Because only 50% of Allied Alloys employees have access to a company email and nearly ⅓ of workers preferring to speak in Spanish, Fenny spent hours creating posters, making phone calls, and encouraging supervisors to pass along messages. It wasn't surprising that open enrollment took weeks of chasing people down and engagement programs like weight loss challenges or Secret Santa had a few dozen participants at most.
Thanks to Team Engine's employee messaging platform and preferred language settings, Fenny can send a text message in minutes to every single supervisor and employee and know that Team Engine will deliver the message in the right language to every person.
Streamlined Process without the Disruption
In the span of a few short months, Fenny was promoted from administrative assistant to HR coordinator and then the sole HR manager. With a thousand things to do every day to keep jobs filled and employees paid and happy, Fenny was glad to have Team Engine's support.
"I was able to get jobs, surveys, and automations set up quickly without any onboarding or training. The simplicity of the platform allows me to stay connected to every applicant and employee without wasting time onboarding them into “yet another system.” But the best part of Team Engine is that it's helping us connect as humans in a time when connection is harder to come by."
For years, we struggled to efficiently share information across our company. Thanks to TeamEngine, we can now reach every employee within 5 minutes. That just wasn’t possible when we relied on flyers, phone calls, and supervisors to pass the messages along.
Fenny Chawala
Human Resources Manager, Allied Alloys
Applicant Response Rate
when using Team Engine's automated interest confirmation text messages.